Thursday, November 21, 2013

TDIH: One of Kennedy's Final Speeches

On this day fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy gave one of his final speeches at the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center in San Antonio, Texas.

His remarks that November day in San Antonio:

Mr. Secretary, Governor, Mr. Vice President, Senator, Members of the Congress, members of the military, ladies and gentlemen:

For more than 3 years I have spoken about the New Frontier. This is not
a partisan term, and it is not the exclusive property of Republicans or
Democrats. It refers, instead, to this Nation's place in history, to
the fact that we do stand on the edge of a great new era, filled with
both crisis and opportunity, an era to be characterized by achievement
and by challenge. It is an era which calls for action and for the best
efforts of all those who would test the unknown and the uncertain in
every phase of human endeavor. It is a time for pathfinders and
pioneers.

I have come to Texas today to salute an
outstanding group of pioneers, the men who man the Brooks Air Force
Base School of Aerospace Medicine and the Aerospace Medical Center. It
is fitting that San Antonio should be the site of this center and this
school as we gather to dedicate this complex of buildings. For this city
has long been the home of the pioneers in the air. It was here that
Sidney Brooks, whose memory we honor today, was born and raised. It was
here that Charles Lindbergh and Claire Chennault, and a host of others,
who, in World War I and World War II and Korea, and even today have
helped demonstrate American mastery of the skies, trained at Kelly Field
and Randolph Field, which form a major part of aviation history. And in
the new frontier of outer space, while headlines may be made by others
in other places, history is being made every day by the men and women of
the Aerospace Medical Center, without whom there could be no history.

Many Americans make the mistake of assuming that space research has no
values here on earth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just as
the wartime development of radar gave us the transistor, and all that it
made possible, so research in space medicine holds the promise of
substantial benefit for those of us who are earthbound. For our effort
in space is not as some have suggested, a competitor for the natural
resources that we need to develop the earth. It is a working partner and
a coproducer of these resources. And nothing makes this clearer than
the fact that medicine in space is going to make our lives healthier and
happier here on earth.

I give you three
examples: first, medical space research may open up new understanding of
man's relation to his environment. Examinations of the astronaut's
physical, and mental, and emotional reactions can teach us more about
the differences between normal and abnormal, about the causes and
effects of disorientation, about changes in metabolism which could
result in extending the life span. When you study the effects on our
astronauts of exhaust gases which can contaminate their environment, and
you seek ways to alter these gases so as to reduce their toxicity, you
are working on problems similar to those in our great urban centers
which themselves are being corrupted by gases and which must be clear.

And second, medical space research may revolutionize the technology and
the techniques of modern medicine. Whatever new devices are created,
for example, to monitor our astronauts, to measure their heart activity,
their breathing, their brain waves, their eye motion, at great
distances and under difficult conditions, will also represent a major
advance in general medical instrumentation. Heart patients may even be
able to wear a light monitor which will sound a warning if their
activity exceeds certain limits. An instrument recently developed to
record automatically the impact of acceleration upon an astronaut's eyes
will also be of help to small children who are suffering miserably from
eye defects, but are unable to describe their impairment. And also by
the use of instruments similar to those used in Project Mercury, this
Nation's private as well as public nursing services are being improved,
enabling one nurse now to give more critically ill patients greater
attention than they ever could in the past.

And
third, medical space research may lead to new safeguards against hazards
common to many environments. Specifically, our astronauts will need
fundamentally new devices to protect them from the ill effects of
radiation which can have a profound influence upon medicine and man's
relations to our present environment.

Here at
this center we have the laboratories, the talent, the resources to give
new impetus to vital research in the life centers. I am not suggesting
that the entire space program is justified alone by what is done in
medicine. The space program stands on its own as a contribution to
national strength. And last Saturday at Cape Canaveral I saw our new
Saturn C-1 rocket booster, which, with its payload, when it rises in
December of this year, will be, for the first time, the largest booster
in the world, carrying into space the largest payload that any country
in the world has ever sent into space.

I think
the United States should be a leader. A country as rich and powerful as
this which bears so many burdens and responsibilities, which has so many
opportunities, should be second to none. And in December, while I do
not regard our mastery of space as anywhere near complete, while I
recognize that there are still areas where we are behind--at least in
one area, the size of the booster--this year I hope the United States
will be ahead. And I am for it. We have a long way to go. Many weeks and
months and years of long, tedious work lie ahead. There will be
setbacks and frustrations and disappointments. There will be, as there
always are, pressures in this country to do less in this area as in so
many others, and temptations to do something else that is perhaps
easier. But this research here must go on. This space effort must go on.
The conquest of space must and will go ahead. That much we know. That
much we can say with confidence and conviction.

Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a
boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and
when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful
to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took
off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no
choice but to follow them.

This Nation has tossed
its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it.
Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards,
they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace
Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space
endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this
wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders
on the other side.

Thank you.

To listen to this speech, please visit the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum website.

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About Me

I am an independent historian, a native Idahoan, an avid reader, a lifelong fan of baseball, and a Democrat. The Political Game offers progressive perspectives on current events, Idaho history & politics, and the political world President Kennedy once referred to as a "great chess game."